Taylor Swift slammed Big Machine Label Group producer Scott Borchetta and former music label head Scooter Braun on Tumblr June 30 after selling Big Machine and all six of her past albums’ masters to Braun.
Braun, who is Jewish, acquired the masters in a $300 million dollar deal with The Carlyle Group’s Ithaca Holdings.
Masters are the original recordings of songs. Swift, 29, also accused Braun, 38, of “manipulative bullying” through his associations with former client Kanye West and West’s wife, Kim Kardashian.
“Some fun facts about today’s news: I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world,” the “Me!” singer wrote. “All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years.
Borchetta wrote on the Big Machine website Sunday night, “Taylor’s dad, Scott Swift, was a shareholder in Big Machine Records, LLC. We first alerted all of the shareholders on Thursday, June 20th for an official shareholder’s call scheduled for Tuesday, June 25th. On the 6/25 call the shareholders were made aware of the pending deal with Ithaca Holdings and had 3 days to go over all of the details of the proposed transaction. We then had a final call on Friday, June 28th in which the transaction passed with a majority vote and 3 of the 5 shareholders voting ‘yes’ with 92 percent of the shareholder’s vote.”
Swift’s representatives denied that the singer’s father was a shareholder.
Several celebrities came to Swift’s defense including Todrick Hall, Halsey, Iggy Azalea while Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato and Justin Beiber defended Braun.
Braun’s wife, founder of Let’s F**k Cancer, Yael Cohen Braun went to Instagram to support her husband.
“He’s a manager, not God. He cannot control the actions of other humans, even ones he manages,” she wrote June 30. ” Don’t blame him because Kim caught you in a lie, it’s embarrassing I know, but adults own up to their mistakes. We learn and grow from them, we don’t divert blame and our the lines of reality to suit our needs.”
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Erin Ben-Moche contributed to this story.
